


Aftershock

by Mertiya



Series: Casualties of War [2]
Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Aftermath, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Gen, Post-War of the Spark, Pre-Slash, Wow there's a lot of unresolved feelings here, or really more pre-OT4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 18:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18610525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: Jace and Ral have a long-overdue feelings jam and manage to sort a few things out.





	Aftershock

**Author's Note:**

> oooof there is a lot of angst but they really needed to get through this before ot4 was even vaguely on the table so here we are

            It was quiet. That was the thing that Jace kept noticing. The strange, blank absence of noise. He stared down at the wooden grain of the table in front of him. Not just the lack of screaming and metal clashing on metal and the wet, horrible sound of parting flesh, but the lack of the buzzing network of voices that he’d been holding inside his head for what seemed like an eternity, now.

            He still couldn’t really believe that they were safe. That Ravnica was safe. That Vraska was safe. That Ral was safe. That—Gideon—Gideon was—

            “Want a drink?” Ral Zarek was hovering at the entrance to his kitchen, wearing—bizarrely enough—a frilly white apron over his ripped and battle-stained outfit. Jace stared at him for a long minute, willing the words to make sense to his ears.

            “Um, yes, sure,” he managed vaguely, after what he suspected was far too long a pause.

            “’Kay,” Ral said. His pupils, Jace noticed, were a little constricted, and one hand was trembling faintly, twitching back and forth. For once, he wasn’t wearing his gauntlet, but he must be completely drained, because there wasn’t a single spark dripping off his fingers or the tips of his hair.

            As Ral headed back into the kitchen, Jace looked vaguely around. Ral and Tomik’s little apartment, well away from the body of the fighting, was now serving as a temporary respite for planeswalkers too utterly exhausted to leave the plane. Most of them were asleep already.

            Chandra and Nissa lay curled together on a pallet near the door. Chandra’s head was flung back, and she was snoring loudly, while Nissa whimpered and twitched gently against her. Vraska, Jace knew, had taken the bathroom, and was asleep in the tub with a pillow under her head. Jace had watched her sleep for a little, sitting on the edge of the tub and letting one of her hair-tendrils twist around his finger, until the restlessness had been too much, and he’d stumbled out into the main room, not really expecting anyone else to be awake.

            Angrath the minotaur was slumped against the wall, eyes shut; in his lap was a walker Jace hadn’t met before today and couldn’t remember the name of, so was mentally referring to as That Really Overdramatic Guy In The Mask. Then there was the werewolf woman from Innistrad, who was in wolf form making a little round ball with her tail neatly over her nose, and a few others, some on rugs, some on the floor, some just pillowed on each other. Tomik Vrona had retired to his bedroom, and Jace had thought Ral would be there as well, but apparently he was in the kitchen making drinks. For some reason.

            The object of his current speculation chose that moment to come back out of the kitchen, carrying two steaming mugs, one of which he set in front of Jace. Then he took the other and slumped over it on the other side of the table. “It’s mulled cider,” he said vaguely as Jace sniffed at the amber liquid.

            Cautiously, he took a drink. “It’s good. Thanks, Ral,” Jace said, eying him cautiously. They hadn’t exactly had a lot of time to catch up during the events of the past day or so. And there was so much that Jace wanted to say that it was tying a knot in his stomach, but he didn’t know if he should say any of it, and even if he’d wanted to poke at Ral’s mind for a clue, he was so tired he probably couldn’t have read a baby’s mind. “So. You’re still up,” he said, instead of anything useful.

            Ral raised an eyebrow at him. “Can’t sleep. Gonna be a while before the stimulants wear off.” He took a draw of his cider. “What’s your excuse?”

            “Too tired,” Jace said vaguely.

            “That’s stupid,” Ral told him.

            Silence stretched between them as Jace sipped at his cider, which was delicious. The silence was horrible, though, the stillness turned from a respite into just another form of tension drawing him taut, a bowstring with no arrow. Finally, he coughed and said, “So…Tomik seems nice.”

            Ral’s eyes flickered up quickly to Jace’s face, and there was a faint sizzling noise as a spark dropped from his forehead into his cider. Jace didn’t quite flinch, but his hands tightened on the mug. For a long moment, he thought he wasn’t going to get a response, and then—

            “You know what the difference is between you and Tomik?” Ral leaned across the table, and even though Jace wasn’t anywhere near touching his mind, he could feel the raw pain of it like a slap in the face.

            “I—”

            “He was _here_ , Jace.” Ral rubbed a hand across his face. “He was here.”

            The worst part was that he didn’t even sound angry, just tired. Just resigned. Jace shut his eyes, clenching his hands around the mug and driving his nails into his palm. “I know,” he said, in a low voice. “I am—I am so sorry, Ral.”

            “I thought you were dead,” Ral said bitterly. “For months. For over a year. But instead, you were what? Just going and finding yourself a new girlfriend? I wasn’t good enough for you?”

            “Ral— _Ral_ —Krokt— _no_.” The tears filled his eyes and overflowed down his cheeks. “I lost my memory,” he blurted. “Bolas ripped my mind apart and trapped me on the plane of Ixalan, I couldn’t leave, I didn’t know who I was—Vraska found me there. We—we bonded like that, when I didn’t—and then I didn’t know how to—you’re right, it had been so long, I thought it might be better if I didn’t come back, I thought you’d have moved on, and you _did_. That’s—that’s good, Ral.”

            Deep breath. Then Ral laughed, and Jace looked up, startled. The Izzet mage was curved forward across the table, dripping sparks again, holding onto his cider. “Should’ve seen that one coming,” he gasped. “You lost your memory _again_ , Jace, really?”

            Heat rose to Jace’s cheeks, and he giggled a little as well. “I did not do it to myself this time. It was Bolas.”

            “So that’s what happened. I guess Bolas used something like the Immortal Sun? When your aether trail vanished, I thought—”

            Tentatively, his stomach still tightly knotted, Jace reached out and brushed his fingers across the back of Ral’s knuckles. “Well, not _like_ the Immortal Sun,” he said mildly. “That’s where he _got_ it.”

            Ral let out another huffing breath and looked up. His eyes were wet. “Okay, but you _did_ still run off in the middle of a date without a word, and that was a while before any of the rest of this happened.”

            Jace gave him a jerky nod. “Yeah. I don’t—I don’t have an excuse for that. I—I kept—every night I thought, _Tomorrow I really need to go back and check on Ravnica_ , but every morning, I was just too scared. I couldn’t face it.”

            “Even if _I_ wasn’t enough to bring you back, you had a fucking _job_ , Jace. I’d have thought at least Ravnica ought to be that important to you. Hell—” he leaned back against, although his fingers lingered for a moment beneath Jace’s. “I have literally been _doing your job for you_. The job, may I remind you, that you _snatched out of my hands_ during the Implicit Maze.”

            Jace caught his eyes, feeling a little better at the realization that the pained hurt had ebbed to make way for something closer to exasperation. He paused, thoughtfully. “Did you enjoy that, Ral? Getting to do the Guildpact’s job?”

            “Well—uh—”

            “Do you want to keep doing it?”

            Ral pulled a face. “Mother of rains, _no_.”

            “And you _wanted_ it.”

            Thoughtful pause. “You’re still an asshole.”

            “Yeah,” Jace agreed. “I fucked up, Ral. I’m so sorry.”

            “You’re lucky you’re cute, Guild—Beleren.” He took another drink of cider, and Jace followed suit. The alcohol burned going down, but his stomach was at least starting to unknot.

            “So, I have a question, Jace.” Ral’s eyes were still tired and a little shocky, but there was something in the way they crinkled that told Jace that he was feeling well enough to tease. “Is it an _absolute_ prerequisite for someone to be involved with you that they try to kill you, or are you okay if it’s only been an attempted maiming?”

            Jace almost choked on his cider. “Wh—n— _Ral_.”

            “Just saying. From what I hear, Vraska got a lot closer to it than I did. Or—oh, is it that someone needs to have worked for Bolas? Got a thing for elder dragons, Jace?”

            Jace put his head in his hands and groaned. “You are terrible. I deserve it, but you are terrible.”

            “Heh.” Ral chuckled, then rose to his feet and stretched. “I think I’m finally starting to get tired. What about you?”

            “I—huh. Yes, I think I am.” The silence had retreated back to real stillness once more, and Jace was becoming aware his limbs and eyelids both had a tendency to droop. “We—we should talk more,” he said haltingly. “There’s a lot of things you still don’t know about me, and—and I think you deserve to.”

            Ral eyed him, up and down, a little strangely, and then he nodded. “Thanks,” he said. “Uh, I think we have another blanket, you can take it into the bathroom for you and—and Vraska.” The way he said her name was tentative and almost pained, and Jace suddenly got a brief touch of hurt that he was pretty sure had absolutely nothing to do with Jace himself. So—there was something else there, and it probably had to do with how late Vraska had been in joining the others and turning against Bolas. He sighed. Now wasn’t the time; they all needed rest more than anything else. There would be time enough to deal with all the rest of the issues later.

            “Thanks,” Jace said as Ral ducked into the bedroom and back out with another blanket.

            “Sure.” Ral leaned over to open the bathroom door for Jace; Jace, not expecting it, nearly ran him over and found himself suddenly in extremely close proximity to the lightning mage.

            “Ah—oh—sorry,” he mumbled.

            There was a pause; Ral sighed. “How about a sorry-I-ran-out-on-you-and-lost-my-memory-again hug?”

            “Only if I get a sorry-I-didn’t-realize-how-terrible-your-job-was hug in return.”

            “Deal.” Jace wasn’t sure which of them closed the gap, but in the next second, he was in Ral’s arms, held tightly, remembering a sensation he’d thought he’d forgotten like being in the eye of the storm. It only lasted for a moment before Ral pulled back, gave him a bemused smile, and headed for his bedroom, but the moment was enough.

            Jace watched him go, then turned back to the bathroom and shut the door, slipping into the tub beside Vraska, who murmured sleepily and blinked her eyes half open. “Shhh,” he told her. “It’s all right. Go back to sleep.”

            She pulled him down beside her, and Jace curled up at her side, his head pillowed against her shoulder. She was safe, too. They were—almost all of them—through the worst of it, coming out on the other side. No matter how many pieces they had to pick up, at least, Jace thought sleepily, giving Vraska a gentle kiss on her cheek, at least most of them were still around _to_ pick them up. That was something.


End file.
